Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. This influential non-fiction book explores the power of snap judgments and rapid decision-making. Gladwell argues that some of the best decisions are made in an instant, based on intuition and limited information, rather than prolonged analysis. The book is filled with real-life stories where quick thinking leads to effective outcomes, capturing the American preference for speed over perfection.
time
External Factors
Decisions are not made in a vacuum. American decision-making allows itself to be influenced by external factors. External customers, company-internal partners, suppliers, changing management priorities, budgets and manpower all can have impact on individual decisions. American decision making aims to be market-driven.
Market-driven in the U.S. means making decisions based on the market‘s rhythm. If necessary, Americans will skip over steps in their decision making approach.
To turn on a dime: To take a very tight turn, used especially for a vehicle; to change direction quickly. A dime is the smallest in size of American coins.
Experience: To encounter or undergo (an event or occurrence); to feel (an emotion); practical contact with and observation of facts or events; the knowledge or skill acquired by such means over a period of time, especially that gained in a particular profession by someone at work; an event or occurrence that leaves an impression on someone (a learning experience).
Down and dirty: Americans are not perfectionists. The goal is seldom the optimal decision, but instead the most effective decision under the given circumstances. Often timely decisions, even if suboptimal, are the best decisions. They can be corrected.
Impatience
According to a survey conducted in 2015, even though almost 80% of Americans consider themselves patient, a vast majority of them behave in ways that display incredible impatience. For example, 96% of Americans will consume food/drink that they know is hot enough to burn them rather than wait for it to cool. Additionally, 71% frequently exceed the speed limit and more than 50% won’t wait on hold for more than one minute.
Oxymoron
An oxymoron is a contradiction in terms, such as “cruel kindness”. For Americans, “a decision making process” is in many ways an oxymoron.
Processes can offer structure, consistency, overview, monitoring. At best they can support the creation of decision options. In the end, decisions are people-driven. Drawing on personal and professional experience, intuition and judgement, a person or a group of persons makes the decision.
Americans are skeptical of decision making processes, especially when they attempt to substitute them for people. Processes have neither experience, nor intuition nor judgement.
How fast?
The American tendency to work at a fast pace and aim for rapid results continues to confound Germans. They have difficulty identifying a logical and structured plan for action amongst their business dealings, and where Americans see hard work and flexibility in action, they suspect only chaos. When Germans feel overrun by American ‘decisionism’ and see their standards of quality and the rhythm of their own style of working as becoming endangered, this confusion can quickly transform into irritation.
“A bad decision is better than no decision.” There are few Americans likely to disagree with this popular saying. Germans, however, would tend towards saying the exact opposite. Sometimes even a good decision will find no supporters.
From the American perspective, it is the client who is the most significant factor in determining the deadline for a given decision. Americans value a client-oriented business model. Because Americans tend to operate under the assumption that this same dynamic exists in in Germany as well, they find it difficult to understand why their German colleagues would risk upsetting a customer over time wasted during the decision-making process.
Priorities and time factors can change during the process of making any decision. Americans prefer to divide this process up into multiple sub-processes or steps. The sequence of these steps must remain flexible – meaning that it should be possible to change their order, or even skip a step or two in between if necessary. From this point of view, the structured discipline of the German decision-making process can appear exceedingly rigid and in-flexible – occasionally appearing as though it would directly conflict with the purpose of the decision itself.
It is almost as though the decision-making process would be more important than the final decision. To Americans, the German approach of assigning so much importance to the process of making a decision as to possibly loose perspective of the final decision itself can seem rather paradoxical. For this reason, one might suspect that simple indecision is being masked by a seeming concern for ‘attention to detail’.
Of course the German understandings of process and customer relations play a role here (according to the motto: ‘The client wants a solution from us. Our processes guarantee a solution, so the client knows that he can wait.’) But surely there must be something more involved; Germans can see that during the process of making an important decision one must also make a series of decisions which are smaller, but not insignificant to the bigger picture. These decisions are key elements of a systematic (or self-perpetuating) approach, each de facto requiring more time for consideration.
Ultimately, whether or not the rebounding American approach – making quick decisions, then revising them just as quickly – is actually faster typically depends on the related events. ‘Wir haben mit Äpfeln und Birnen zu tun’ – you can’t compare apples and oranges (or pears). Nevertheless, there will always be those colleagues who will continue do do so, and continue to bicker.
People Driven
Americans are skeptical of business processes that attempt to replace human judgment. They believe that decision-making is inherently human. Drawing on personal and professional experience, intuition and judgment, a person or a group of persons makes the decision. Processes have neither experience, nor intuition nor judgment.
Analysis defines the situation, the options, their respective risks and benefits. Experience informs about how the situation could/should be dealt with. And intuition influences the decision.
Decision: A conclusion or resolution reached after consideration; the action or process of deciding something or of resolving a question; a formal judgment; the ability or tendency to make decisions quickly; decisiveness. From Latin decidere “determine”.
Analysis: Detailed examination of the elements or structure of something, typically as a basis for discussion or interpretation; the process of separating something into its constituent elements; the identification and measurement of the chemical constituents of a substance or specimen.
Kahneman Quotes
Daniel Kahneman is an Israeli-American psychologist notable for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making, for which he was awarded the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
His empirical findings challenge the assumption of human rationality prevailing in modern economic theory. In the same year, his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, which summarizes much of his research, was published and became a best seller.
„True intuitive expertise is learned from prolonged experience with good feedback on mistakes.“
„We think, each of us, that we’re much more rational than we are. And we think that we make our decisions because we have good reasons to make them. Even when it’s the other way around. We believe in the reasons, because we’ve already made the decision.“
„There’s a lot of randomness in the decisions that people make.“
„Nobody would say, ‘I’m voting for this guy because he’s got the stronger chin,’ but that, in fact, is partly what happens.“
„It is the consistency of the information that matters for a good story, not its completeness. Indeed, you will often find that knowing little makes it easier to fit everything you know into a coherent pattern.“
„We’re blind to our blindness. We have very little idea of how little we know. We’re not designed to know how little we know.“
„We are very influenced by completely automatic things that we have no control over, and we don’t know we’re doing it.“
cheese
Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson. This business fable is about adapting quickly to change. The characters who succeed are those who make fast decisions and act, rather than waiting for perfect information or circumstances. The story is widely used in American business to encourage employees to embrace quick, adaptive decision-making.
Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny and the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). President James K. Polk’s administration pursued rapid territorial expansion under the banner of “Manifest Destiny.” Polk pressed for quick action in diplomatic and military disputes, favoring decisive moves to secure territory rather than protracted negotiations. This approach led to the swift annexation of vast western lands, reflecting the American preference for speed and adaptability in decision-making.